Published Clips
Chad Neuman
Scholastic CyberScams
Succeed
Summer 2002
Many of us with e-mail have seen the familiar slogans:
Degree for a Small Fee!
Certificate in Any Expertise!
Get Your Bachelor's in a Week!
Cheap Diplomas!
Bargain MBAs!
These unwanted mass e-mailed messages, or SPAM, are an occasional annoyance if nothing else. But, many of the institutions behind them use deceitful marketing campaigns, including such mass e-mailing advertisements to giant lists of addresses, in order to make millions of dollars.
Diploma mills, the fake academic institutions that offer illegitimate degrees or certificates for a fee, have been a problem for genuine academic universities and employers for the last few decades. Nevertheless, the Internet has created new marketing opportunities for cyber-scholastic scams.
While many people would be able to distinguish these e-mail offers as scams, the relatively new, authentic-looking Web sites of some of the diploma mills, which get their names from variations of real schools, could fool some people into obtaining a degree, oftentimes for simply answering a few questions and sending a check in the mail.
The Internet has also helped diploma mills become more numerous. Since many colleges and universities now offer programs and courses online, it's easier for many people to confuse genuine academic programs with imposter colleges and universities.
"Scam artists have discovered how easy it is to set up authentic-looking Web pages that gull the unwary into assuming that the college portrayed is genuine and accredited," says Beverly Geber of Training. Here's a hint: Most of the diploma mills are based out of a small office with a P.O. Box address and no real "campus" and of course, they have no academic curriculum, warns Geber. Besides being fraudulent, many believe such diploma mills may lead to the detriment of genuine online academic programs offered by accredited institutions, colleges, and universities.
Many of these scam companies offer course credit and/or full diplomas for previous life experience, requiring no class attendance. Others offer courses that can be credited for previously earned college courses. But it's not done in the same way as transferring credits.
Foreign students, who aren't fluent English and are eager to gain a degree in the United States are especially susceptible to the diploma mill scam. According to Sarah Carr and Andrea L. Foster in an article in The Chronicle of Higher Education, "Those students are drawn by the cachet of a degree from an institution in the United States but may not understand how accreditation works, or its importance."
What fools many into believing that some of the mills are legitimate is that many of them are listed alongside genuine distance education courses on search engines. And, don't let Web addresses ending in the ".edu" extension trick you. For instance, www.rushmore.edu, uses a real-looking address, but their address is a P.O. Box in Grand Cayman. "Rushmore University" also states on its Web site that it does not require a BA to obtain an MBA, or an MBA to obtain a Ph.D.
Diploma mills also use variations of real college and/or university names, such as Columbia State University, which, according to Lisa Guerney of The Chronicle of Higher Education, has defrauded people from New York to Norway.
Action Against Diploma Mills
There has been some action to put a stop to the diploma mills. Louisiana, once known for the abundance of cyber scam school mills operating within its border, enacted legislation to curb the popularity of such businesses in 1999. The new law requires colleges to have a physical location in Louisiana to operate from the state, and be on their way to accreditation by an institution recognized by the U.S. Department of Education in order to claim to be a true university or college.
Likewise, Hawaii, also known for its lax rules and abundance of diploma mills, passed a bill in 1999 requiring in-state mandates (any institution wishing to obtain a license to operate as a business in Hawaii must employ at least one person and have 25 in-state students enrolled), and an up-front policy (all unaccredited institutions must inform the public of that fact).
When Is It a Crime?
One problem with stopping diploma mills is it may become more difficult to prove mail fraud when the person buying the degree or certificate knows that it's not intended for any real use.
Many of the customers are aware of the fact that what they are actually purchasing are duped degrees, but they do so to get promoted, receive a raise, or get hired to a new job without having to enroll in college.
When the customer uses the fake degree to obtain a promotion or raise, the actual crime is committed. But, if the person orders the degree and doesn't know it is fake, then he/she was defrauded. Either way, say staunch opponents, it's an A+ crime indeed.
Genuine Programs
In contrast, genuine online education courses and distance learning programs are very helpful for busy people without much time for part- or –full-time school in a regular classroom setting.
Many colleges and universities coordinate their own distance education programs through correspondence or online courses.
Carole Hayes, coordinator of external relations at the Office for Distributed and Distance Learning at Florida State University, says online education is not just a trend anymore, but rather, a staple of many colleges and universities. "Online course offerings are part of business as usual. Entire online programs are less common, but growing in number all the time," says Hayes.
To assure a quality distance education, she adds, take a course from an accredited college or university. "Courses offered by regionally accredited institutions are always safer choices for quality assurance in credit courses," says Hayes.
"The reason is that regional accrediting agencies certify compliance with best practices in course development, materials use, teaching faculty, and student support."
Checking Up
Many legitimate distance education programs exist. To learn more, you'll have to do some investigation:
First Step: CONTACT THE COLLEGE OR UNIVERSITY you are interested in taking courses from, or, for distance-education schools, the Distance Education and Training Council (DETC) at 202-234-5100, or online at www.detc.org.
TO VALIDATE WHETHER OR NOT A SCHOOL IS CERTIFIED, CHECK ITS ACCREDITATION. If the accrediting agency of the college or university is sanctioned by the U.S. Department of Education or the Council on Higher Education Accreditation, the school is genuine. For more information, contact the Department of Education, Division of Eligibility and Agency Evaluation at 202-245-9875.
TO CHECK THE APPROVAL OF AN ACCREDITING AGENCY, contact the Council on Higher Education Accreditation at 202-955-6126, online at www.chea.org, or vial e-mail: chea@chea.org.
Since many diploma mills use Web sites to market, you can CHECK WHO OWNS THE DOMAIN NAME by logging onto www.register.com. Enter the domain name, and it will tell you contact information for the owners of the address. Of course, if a fake organization name is used there, fraudulence may not be evident. At the very least, you can find out if a Web site claims to be something they are not, and if they are indeed registered as another entity entirely.
